New CEO of BT Openreach Olivia Garfield says 90pc target for superfast
broadband can be met

Telecoms giant BT has appointed Olivia Garfield to run its Openreach division. Ms Garfield, 35, will be responsible for rolling out super-fast fibre broadband across as much of the country as possible.

Currently BT's group director of strategy and regulatory affairs, she will take over from Steve Robertson, who has led Openreach since its foundation in 2005.

Speaking after her appointment, Ms Garfield said that she believed by working closely with Government, BT Openreach could bring superfast broadband to 90 per cent of the country. She denied that BT lacked the nimbleness necessary to help culture secretary Jeremy Hunt meet his objective of providing Britain with the “best broadband network in Europe by 2015”.

“We’ve rolled out a fibre network at twice the pace of anywhere else in the world,” she said. “Everything we do is at scale.”

The UK Government has committed to providing up to £830 million of public money for superfast broadband roll-out. Ms Garfield warned that BT could not itself make a commercial case beyond two-thirds of the country, but could reach 90 per cent by match-funding the Government’s money. “The greatest challenge is to make an economic case,” she said.